How would Gawker be covering the Trump era were it still around in 2017? It’s a question on the minds of many today, a year to the day after CEO Nick Denton announced the site was shutting down.

That question is tied up in the larger one about how Gawker, a site with significant numbers of both detractors and supporters, should be remembered. One take that’s getting a lot of attention is this Washington Post tribute by University of Maine professor Michael J. Socolow, who accurately concluded that Gawker’s legacy in death is just as complicated as its journalistic was role in life.

Gawker might have been foolhardy, reckless and ultimately self-destructive, but it was also, above all, courageous. With the hindsight of Donald Trump’s ascendancy to the presidency, we should all recognize that courage in the media is needed now more than ever.

Gawker is mostly defined as a guilty pleasure, an exercise in prurience by bored Web surfers and their millennial progeny. Yet its impact on American media remains undeniable. It launched the careers of an excellent set of young journalists, and it demonstrated a rare independence from corporate pressure, celebrity handlers and political operatives

Many former Gawker writers and editors shared Socolow’s affection for Gawker’s journalistic legacy.

Let me put it this way: if Gawker were still around, the Access Hollywood tape wouldn’t be the only Trump tape out there. https://t.co/7r7Qv8ynzQ

Of course, the post-mortem fondness for Gawker is far from universal. Gawker’s brand of reporting was always too cruel and uncompromising for some, and many were happy to see the site go, and are still happy that its gone. (Others like David Boardman, dean of the Klein College of Media and Communication at Temple University were more ambivalent about Gawker’s legacy.)

Gawker was a media empire that routinely went after small targets for clicks. Their demise is NOT a victory of the “strong” over the “weak.”

Bilton, R. (2017, Aug. 22). A year after Gawker’s death, here’s how people are remembering its complicated legacy. Nieman Journalism Lab. Retrieved February 17, 2018, from http://www.niemanlab.org/2017/08/a-year-after-gawkers-death-heres-how-people-are-remembering-its-complicated-legacy/

Chicago

Bilton, Ricardo. "A year after Gawker’s death, here’s how people are remembering its complicated legacy." Nieman Journalism Lab. Last modified August 22, 2017. Accessed February 17, 2018. http://www.niemanlab.org/2017/08/a-year-after-gawkers-death-heres-how-people-are-remembering-its-complicated-legacy/.